21 Facts About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Will Blow Your Mind

What you are about to see is more evidence that the growth of poverty in the United States is wildly out of control. It turns out that there is a tremendous amount of suffering in “the wealthiest nation on the planet”, and it is getting worse with each passing year. During this election season, politicians of all stripes are running around telling all of us how great we are, but is that really true? As you will see below, poverty is reaching unprecedented levels in this country, and the middle class is steadily dying. There aren’t enough good jobs to go around, dependence on the government has never been greater, and it is our children that are being hit the hardest. If we have this many people living on the edge of despair now, while times are “good”, what are things going to look like when our economy really starts falling apart? The following are 21 facts about the explosive growth of poverty in America that will blow your mind…

#2 Other numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau are also very disturbing. For example, in 2007 about one out of every eight children in America was on food stamps. Today, that number is one out of every five.

#3 According to Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer, the authors of a new book entitled “$2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America“, there are 1.5 million “ultrapoor” households in the United States that live on less than two dollars a day. That number has doubled since 1996.

#446 million Americans use food banks each year, and lines start forming at some U.S. food banks as early as 6:30 in the morning because people want to get something before the food supplies run out.

#5 The number of homeless children in the U.S. has increased by 60 percent over the past six years.

#6 According to Poverty USA, 1.6 million American children slept in a homeless shelter or some other form of emergency housing last year.

#13 An astounding 45 percent of all African-American children in the United States live in areas of “concentrated poverty”.

#1440.9 percent of all children in the United States that are being raised by a single parent are living in poverty.

#15 An astounding 48.8 percent of all 25-year-old Americans still live at home with their parents.

#16 There are simply not enough good jobs to go around anymore. It may be hard to believe, but 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.

#17 There are 7.9 million working age Americans that are “officially unemployed” right now and another 94.7 million working age Americans that are considered to be “not in the labor force”. When you add those two numbers together, you get a grand total of 102.6 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now.

#18 Owning a home has traditionally been a signal that you belong to the middle class. That is why it is so alarming that the rate of homeownership in the United States has been falling for eight years in a row.

#19 According to a recent Pew survey, approximately 70 percent of all Americans believe that “debt is a necessity in their lives”.

#20 At this point, 25 percent of all Americans have a negative net worth. That means that the value of what they owe is greater than the value of everything that they own.

#21 The top 0.1 percent of all American families have about as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent of all American families combined.

If we truly are “the greatest nation on the planet”, then why can’t we even take care of our own people?

It would be one thing if economic conditions were getting better and poverty was in decline. At least then we could be talking about the improvement we were making. But despite the fact that we are stealing more than a hundred million dollars from future generations of Americans every single hour of every single day, poverty just continues to grow like an aggressive form of cancer.

So what is wrong?

Why can’t we get this thing fixed?

Tell us what you think we should do as a nation to solve this problem by posting a comment below…

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A lot needs to be changed, such as a tax regime that favours equity over debt financing. But before anything substantial can happen, election law needs to be reformed: no contributions except by natural persons; a strict maximum contribution; free air time for anyone who obtains more than a set number of endorsements; get rid of system with electoral colleges; devolution of media concentration by spliting up media conglomerates; devolution of bank concentration by setting a limit to their balance sheet as percentage of GDP.

digriff

You want to know what we should do as a nation? TRUMP 2016

dan

The problem is debt forced upon us by the banking cartel. Labor wouldn’t cost so much if individuals didn’t have so much debt. We could then compete in the world for manufacturing of products. At minimum a man needs to make $200 every working day to raise a family. That is because debt forced upon him.

Clay

There are no longer any free markets. Government continually adds regulation & taxes until there is a crisis which requires more regulation & taxes to “fix”. History shows this continues until things get so bad that some kind of major upheaval or revolution takes place.

ranchdancer

The definition of poverty , owning a cel phone, 40 inch flat screen TV, direct TV o foriegn countries, designer clothing, gold chains, designer snaekers, air conditioning, trips to disney, vacations, free health care, daycare for mothers too lazy to care for kids, give me a break. Yes there is some real areas of poverty in our country but these ? stats are BS. Compared to other countries, Africa, S America. we have little idea of what poverty is given the few exceptions!

About Michael Snyder

Michael T. Snyder is a graduate of the University of Florida law school and he worked as an attorney in the heart of Washington D.C. for a number of years. Today, Michael is best known for his work as the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and The Most Important News. Michael and his wife Meranda believe that a great shaking is coming, but that there will also be a great awakening in the midst of that shaking. For much more on what Michael believes, and to learn how you can become a Christian, please visit "The Most Important Thing" which is the most important page on this entire website. In addition, please visit Michael's Bookstore to see what Michael is personally recommending to his readers.

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